Delano Hotel

Robert Swartburg
1947
1685 Collins Avenue

The Delano Hotel with its finned tower next to the National Hotel with a domed tower

This tall hotel (the tallest building in Miami Beach when it was built) owes more to Mies and Corbusier than to practitioners of Art Deco. Not quite the International Style cigar box on end, it has some variation from that regularity with its angular walls with windows, a way of maximizing the light, outside views, and in the days before air-conditioning providing cross ventilation.

Art Deco tower

This attention-getting tower with wings or fins allies this hotel with smaller Art Deco hotels on South Beach with distinctive towers.